


maybe someday!

by rankarana



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Post-Series, also kaoru is heavily mentioned, fairly emotionally heavy introspective chisato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 10:50:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18193610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rankarana/pseuds/rankarana
Summary: Following the second most ill-advised night of her life, Chisato takes a trip around Tokyo.





	maybe someday!

**Author's Note:**

> (cw for references to suicidal thoughts.)

Chisato decides that sex with Hina isn’t like what she expected.

It’s a lot rougher, for one thing, and goes through long periods of just feeling kind of sore and not particularly nice, until suddenly it _does_ feel good, unpleasantly good, the kind of good that makes Chisato stop thinking and feel herself melt a little between the wall and Hina—and then that ends when Hina suddenly halts, grabs one of Chisato’s limbs and arranges it in some vaguely uncomfortable way, and the whole cycle starts again.

Hina’s teeth are sharp, too. This one Chisato could have guessed, but when Hina leans into her and then suddenly swerves into her shoulder, biting down so hard that Chisato almost feels like she might draw blood, she ends up almost punching Hina in the side; and the girl doesn’t exactly look _contrite_ when she rears up afterwards.

(At least it was her shoulder and not her neck or collar – and for a second, Chisato’s almost fooled into thinking that maybe Hina actually has some sort of empathy or understanding of how to conduct herself, but that can’t possibly be true.)

She doesn’t talk that much, either. Maybe it’s just that it’s not the right mood for it (god knows that if Chisato heard that she had a ‘boppin’ bussy’ right now she’d probably throw Hina right off of her), but aside from Hina’s little grunts in her ear and the occasional “Good, Chisato? Yeah?” when she gets it _right_ and Chisato starts panting against _her--_

Well, there’s other words, too, although it’s hard to hear them over her own heartbeat and with Hina’s lips pressed against her skin. She hears traces of them, the same two or three words, the same _declaration,_ over and over, and decides they’re the kind of things she doesn’t like to hear. Things she never _believes_ , when people tell them to her.

At least, when it ends, it ends on a high, like Hina’s figured out Chisato’s rhythm and how to keep that going, responding with a reassuring degree of weight when Chisato lets herself slump into Hina’s body, waiting for all of— _everything_ to pass, while she deals with the realisation that Hina just made her come.

And when she’s done, Hina seemingly as spent as she is, the girl none-too-gently guides her over to a chair, sits her down, and then promptly walks off to the minibar, examining whatever far-too-expensive cans of beer are in there.

Chisato isn’t sure why she had expectations for sex with Hina in the first place.

* * *

 

Chisato can count the number of times she’s been told to seek therapy on around two hands, give or take.

“So how many women have you slept with?”

It offends her enough that she’s actually not willing to spit the same foul comment out at Hina, although part of her really does think it could help with some of Hina’s issues? Probably not the one that makes her ask that question out loud as they walk through Ikebukuro on a sunny Saturday morning, though, in the middle of people who would actually _listen_ to Pastel Palettes and stan them on Twitter. Some of them might even have that next album on pre-order.

“Pardon?”

“Just curious!” Hina’s not taking it back, either; and even if she’s not insisting on getting an answer, Chisato still feels a little pressured by it. Part of her assumed the walk of shame would be _less_ strangely suffocating if she was actually with the woman she spent the night with, but then again, that woman normally wouldn’t be Hina. (Or, frankly, would ever be Hina again, with any luck.)

They continue on in silence, and Chisato finds herself considering the benefits of capsule wardrobes. Just by stuffing her blazer into her bag and putting on her sunglasses, it’s like she’s wearing a whole new outfit and not at all walking around in the same clothes she got fucked in last night!

“Oh. A Lotteria,” Chisato suddenly blurts out, wanting to think about anything else but last night right now; although the more she thinks about it., implying she wants to get breakfast with Hina and pointing out a venue for it is only slowly dragging out her suffering.

“Ooooh. Sayo doesn’t like Lotteria much. Says their fries rely too much on the lil’ sachets, and it’s not like, authentic.”

“…they’re fast food fries.”

“And we’re a disposable bubblegum pop band,” Hina replies, with a level of ironic sincerity that makes Chisato a little more uncomfortable than it should. “Do they do, like, morning specials? I’ve never been to Lotteria in the morning before! C’mon, we gotta go in now.”

The answer turns out to be ' _oh, there’s this weird eggy burger and you can get it with a hash brown and coffee, that’s boppin’, c’mon Chisato, what’re you gonna get, don’t make the till lady wait, sorry about my friend, haha, she’s always like this!’_ [sic], and Chisato ultimately settles for a pot of tomato minestrone.

To Lotteria’s merit, it tastes substantially less chemical-filled than she expected; although the combination of an espresso and soup ends up being not exactly pleasant.

“What about you?” Chisato asks.

“Mmh?” There’s a crumb of ‘weird eggy burger’ on Hina’s lip as she looks up at Chisato, eyes shining with so much genuine interest and alertness that she wonders if Hina even needs the morning coffee.

“How many people have _you_ slept with.”

“Ohhhhh.” She takes a bite of the hash brown, tearing into it and replacing the fragment of egg on her face with a blob of potato. “Uhhhhh.”

Hina begins to tap the top of the faux-wood vinyl table with her finger, nail bending a little under the pressure. Perhaps she’s counting them out, although that raises the question of what ‘dragging her nail across the table towards herself’ represents.

“Take your time.”

“Oh, nho, ah--" Hina finishes chewing the chunk of hash brown, clearing her throat and staring at the tiny little scratchmarks she’s inflicted on the furnishings. “No, it’s more… I’m not subtle, right? So I think if I left a big ol’ trail of wet panties behind me, you guys’d all know! And then the agency would! And _then_ we’d start getting into trouble!”

It’s the kind of answer that’s so earnest and self-deprecating that it has to be hiding something, Chisato thinks. It just isn’t _Hina._

“I’m special, then,” and just so it’s perfectly clear, Chisato drags out the word enough that she believes she’s anything but.

“Mm, how aboooout… theoretically speaking, like, if we were to talk on paper? If I said you were my type?”

“Yes, we’re all aware you have a thing for distant older-seeming women who you have to actually earn the validation of,” Chisato replies, the words leaving her mouth before she can stop herself. She blames the (disgusting, _actually_ tasting-entirely-of _-_ chemicals) coffee.

“Wooow.” Hina seems genuinely struck by that bit of armchair psychology, somehow. Chisato thought she was smarter than that. “It’s kinda… screwed up, how much you get me. Maybe you should give up the idol stuff and start training to be a shrink.”

“Hm.”

Chisato, frankly, would like to find a good therapist of her own first.

* * *

Chisato doesn’t want to go home.

She wishes she had her own place, but with the amount of travelling she has to do for work, extortionate central Tokyo apartment rent isn't quite worth it, and if she’s stuck in the outskirts then she might as well stay with her parents.

They aren’t as _weird_ about everything as they used to be, though. Just as pushy, but not as controlling; probably because they’ve realised by now that Chisato can run by herself. She has no reason to slow down, anyway. No reason to accept Kaoru’s offer to take that sabbatical and visit her yacht in Okinawa.

And it’s not like she can’t entertain herself, either, but right now company seems preferable. She wonders how ordinary people deal with situations like this; lashing out, maybe, but the last time she did that she almost lost all the people who _genuinely_ care about her, or venting to the world, but even the most private Twitter could be a potential security leak.

“How many pancakes… Three? Six? Maybe more?”

It must be nice to be free, she thinks, watching Tae stare _intensely_ at the café’s menu.

After seeing Hina off, she’d walked around Ikebukuro a little, as if waiting for something to happen – the last twelve hours had been disastrous enough, what’s another bout of suffering – and when to her disappointment nothing actually _did,_ she’d pulled out her phone, scrolled down to a certain name, and…

She’d been surprised that Tae didn’t outright materialise behind her when she did. In fact, Tae didn’t even pick up, and Chisato doesn’t leave messages as a rule, so she’d toyed with calling up Kanon after that, and while she considered whether or not to drag her into this, her phone had rang.

(It caught her off guard, a little.)

She ended up actually riding the Yamanote line over to Ueno to meet Tae, because expecting her friend to come all the way over to where she was would be… unreasonable. After all, Chisato was making _great_ effort to be a human being right now; asking Tae how Kasumi was, commenting on the décor of the cute little café, complimenting Tae’s choice of a nine-pancake brunch (since, after all, it became incredibly clear that Chisato’d woken both her and her girlfriend up with that call).

“Did you want to talk about something?” Tae offers, since that’s the assumption when Chisato calls her up.

“Well.” For all of Tae’s awkwardness, there’s a few benefits to her as a confidant – for one thing, her friends and Chisato’s friends don’t really talk, and for another, she doesn’t really bother with small talk. She much prefers getting to the point, in her own roundabout way. It’s an attractive quality.

…Hina’s much the same, isn’t she; but that’s a strange point of comparison to hold right now.

Chisato gently tilts her head, takes a sidelong glance around the café, makes _very_ sure no-one’s paying attention to Shirasagi Chisato’s public kiss and tell, and then leans in a little closer. “I slept with Hina, last night.”

Tae looks at her, stares at her pancakes for a few seconds, and then turns back to Chisato. “Ah.”

“Yes.”

“That was very brave of you,” Tae says, templing her hands under her chin.

“What, to tell you about it?”

Tae seems confused by her response, brows furrowed, before quickly digging her fork down into two of her pancakes, ripping a large chunk off both.

“And this hasn’t happened before?”

“…no.” But if that’s Tae’s reaction, that probably means something. Chisato decides not to dig deeper.

“Ah… mm. These pancakes are nice. Want some?”

“I’m still quite full from breakfast.”

“You definitely want some pancakes,” Tae tells her, with enough conviction that Chisato once again believes her, and performs the chastening gesture of opening mildly wide and eating it.

She’s still full, she quickly realises, but it’s fluffy, and warm, and everything else that makes for a good pancake.

Tae asks just enough questions about last while they eat, offering Chisato more bites of the stack as she does – by pancake number 4, Chisato’s turning her down every time, but Tae continues to ask in between _‘Where were you?’_ (a hotel), _‘How was it?’_ (conflicting), _‘Did you sleep well afterwards?’_ (actually quite well, although she had a mild panic attack in the morning, seeing Hina sleeping with a smile and one arm wrapped around her) and other incisive questions.

“Would you like a pat?” Tae asks, reaching the bottom of the pile.

“No, thank you,” Chisato replies.

“Want to pat me, instead?” She places her hands up by her head, briefly flapping them in a way that’s probably meant to look something like a rabbit, and in spite of herself Chisato finds herself reaching forward, touching Tae’s head until Tae looks vaguely bored.

If only it lasted a little longer, she thinks. How – to quote Hina – _screwed up_ of her.

The discussion takes another swerve after that, to the topic of DIY, and how much political praxis can be enacted through youth activism, and why Guero might actually be the best Beck album, and how Kasumi’s started wanting more guitars now they have some income but they don’t have enough space at home.

Chisato, for her part, wonders what home truly is.

* * *

 

Chisato realises that it’s very, very easy to just _stop,_ in a way.

With Tae full, and apparently busy with session musician work in the afternoon (not that she’d mentioned it until the end, of course, all her attempts to not question Chisato just making Chisato feel worse), they’d gone their separate ways, and Chisato simply made her way through the city. Calling on more people would be awkward at this point, and worst of all, _needy._

Without enough cash in hand to make Ginza worthwhile (and still not wanting to risk any awkward discussions with daddy if they found out that she’d randomly spent 300,000 yen apropos of nothing), she’d settled on going over to Shinjuku and trying to lose herself in Lumine for a few hours, pulling a perfect mask of mild delighted interest at those fresh spring looks and this wonderful eyeshadow palette that makes you glow just like the cherry blossoms, considering _very_ earnestly buying them before ever so politely declining, wondering how bored the shop attendants have to be. Her phone’s been buzzing on and off for the last hour, or so, but she hasn’t looked at it. Frankly, she hasn’t even cared enough to put it on silent – although the buzzes are frequent enough that it’s probably just one of her group chats going off on something.

And now, not a single shopping bag in her hand, Chisato finds herself on Platform 14 of Shinjuku station, surrounded by tens of people, although it feels like hundreds. Some of them would know who she is, for sure. She’s seen her face on posters on this very platform, before, for the last ten years. Maybe longer.  Maybe if she turns around, risks standing out, she’ll see that surprisingly handsome shot of Eve plastered up on a wall somewhere, advertising their upcoming fourth album, because they’ve somehow pumped out _four_ of these. Five, if you count both EPs as one album - which they almost were, before the label changed their mind, but--

Things have changed, over the years, for her.

For one, Kaoru no longer wants to fuck her. Apparently, goths are more her type, and Chisato feels sorry for the poor pianist putting her award-winning fingers to use satiating the desires of the unbearable pillow prince; and overall that should be a relief, but…

If even _Kaoru_ is over her, then things must have gone wrong, somewhere.

Not that things _could_ go wrong for Chisato. She’s a successful actress, somehow an actually talented musician, has friends who care about her, natural good looks, and a theoretical 8-digit bank balance. Most days – almost all, really, last night was a minor blip – go simply _perfectly_ for her. It all just flows into itself, just one non-stop rush after another, the kind of life you see on TV - see, her train’s almost at the station now, ready for her to step aboard.

She steps forward, over the yellow line. Another step, and another, and then when her foot touches air—

A step back.

It was momentary, in every sense, and now it’s passed.

It’s fine, she tells herself. She has nowhere to go for now; she can sit down as long as she wants. A drink from the vending machine would do her good, actually. Why _not_ treat herself to that luxury 180 yen bottle of grape soda.

She forces herself through the crowd as the train pulls in, head bowed and  shoulders tucked in, attracting more than a few looks as she stumbles over to the nearest vending machine – but it’s Shinjuku station, and everyone around here has seen far, far stranger things than an idol having a bad day.

Drink in hand, now comfortably seated, Chisato lets out a long, deep sigh, and lets herself recover, a little. She’s not really sure what recovery feels like, at this point, but sitting down isn’t hurting the process. The drink fizzes a little as she opens it, but it’s not too bad – grape soda all over her hand’s no more embarrassing than however Hina was eating this morning.

She gets out her phone, sees the 99+ notifications on LINE, takes another deep breath, and opens it. The #pastelpositivity chat (it’s had that name for years, now, and no-one has the heart to make Aya cry by changing it) seems to have had a lot going on in the last hour, but, below that – oh, another new message in the group chat – is something that she feels far more conflicted over.

Four unread messages, apparently, from Hina, and before she  can emotionally prepare herself, her finger slips and opens it, and like some pathetic child she screws her eyes

The first is barely of note, from last night – at the point where Hina arrived at the party, before finding where Chisato was – but the others are…

New.

Mm.

The morning after the night she slept with Kaoru (and left as soon as she woke up, shoving a bathrobe-clad Kaoru out of the way and spilling her glass of orange juice in the process), Chisato received around ten, twenty messages from her, all of them praising her, reminiscing about last night, making future plans, asking if she’d meant to leave her phone charger there and perhaps they should meet up so Kaoru could give it back--

That morning stuck with her, because – well, for one thing, she stooped to sleeping with Kaoru, but – she’d expected to feel ill, or like dying, or like… like _today,_ in fact. And instead, on the set of whatever 9PM drama it was, when she worked up the strength to look at the messages, she’d laughed. Laughed almost the hardest she had in her life, certainly harder than any time before she’d met Pastel Palettes, hard enough that they had to redo the current take because her laughter got picked up by the boom mic.

And now, looking at these messages, she feels… so much. So much of _everything._ Just awful, really.

She’s not Hina, after all. She knows exactly why she’s feeling like this.

 _I’ll be there,_ she sends back to Hina.

After all, if she _was_ going to do what she almost did, then she’d take Kaoru’s offer, go down to Okinawa, overdose and throw herself off the yacht; because she might as well drag _Kao-chan_ down with her.

And Kaoru, of all people, is _certainly_ not worth dying for.

Chisato thinks that if she _is_ going to stop, she’d like to think she’d have a better reason.

* * *

 

Chisato wonders if she enjoys the sound of meat crackling a little too much.

Yes, the primary draw of yakiniku is the taste, and of course the communal atmosphere, but something about the way the meat sounds is satisfying. There’s a direct cause and effect to it, perhaps? Homely, too, and the way it gently drowns out the sounds of the rest of the restaurant lets her relax a little more in anonymity than she would otherwise.

If anyone in the world would understand, it would be Maya, she thinks; but for some reason, she doesn’t ask her about it. Being stuck on the Maya side of the table was something Chisato feared at group dinners, at first – not because she disliked Maya (in fact, on average, Maya is likely the bandmate she has the fewest issues with) but because Maya barely watches movies, and Chisato doesn’t listen to that much music, and Maya wants to explain the ins and outs of mobile games while Chisato wants to bitch about Tokyo Fashion Week.

But still, they get along, because people somehow manage to muddle through and _do_ that.

“Hey, Chisato.” Maya’s voice is low, almost hidden under the sizzling of their meat, which would be an impressive trick if it didn’t mean Chisato had to strain to hear it.

“What is it?”

“You, uh, feeling better?” She reaches up, doing her best to try to pass as an emotional anchor and places her hand onto Chisato’s shoulder— _that_ shoulder. It throbs for a second, and yet Chisato barely feels the pain.

“Mm?”

“No, ‘s just…” Maya reaches into the fire pit, handling those tongs like an expert as she flips over the thin slice of pork belly, pressing down firmly to get it properly cooked. “I heard… about stuff.”

“About what?” Chisato hisses just like the meat, and Maya’s hand slips, sending the meat flying out of the pan and right onto Hina’s plate, leading to a brief but substantial battle between her tongs and Hina’s chopsticks, because Hina does _not_ fear something as simple as undercooked meat.

On her end, Chisato waits with what must be a foul-looking scowl for the battle to end, Maya ultimately seizing the meat off Hina, placing it back onto the hotplate, and looking positively terrified when she turns back to Chisato.

“O-oh… just… uhm…” She’s frozen up, now, ever so gently shifting away across the wooden bench, until Chisato forces herself into a smile just as unconvincing as the ones from when she was shopping this afternoon; and, yes, Maya is absolutely unconvinced.

She ends up downing a good amount of her beer before managing to reply.

“That… she got a little drunk, last night. And m-might have gotten a bit too emotionally raw in front of you. I mean, I’ve done that enough times to Aya that… I assumed it’d be…” Maya trails off, grabbing her tongs again with shaking hands and hastily placing Hina’s earlier-claimed pork onto Chisato’s plate.

Luckily, Hina seems too preoccupied trying to steal Aya’s portion to notice; not that Chisato’s paying particularly special attention to her. She’s talking to Maya, after all, and gives the scared girl a pat on the arm.

“Oh. No, I suppose that’s… fine, if you know.” Her face softens, Maya clearly physically untenses, and Chisato finds her gaze wandering back to Hina, who looks about as sheepish as she can – which is to say, very mildly raised eyebrows; and then she _smiles,_ right at Chisato, for as long as she can before Eve starts rambling on about real Japanese wagyu beef into her ear.

Perhaps Hina isn’t subtle in anything but pretending she doesn’t have any subtlety, Chisato wonders.

“Do you ever think about how… nice the sound of meat crackling is?” Chisato asks, and Maya, of course, nods approvingly. She finally seems back in her element.

“Oh, it’s great. Literally good crunchy sound. In fact, this is really weird, but I’ve heard it used as a sample before…”

What an insane fact, Chisato thinks, and even though part of her truly couldn’t care less, somehow hearing Maya talk about this might be one of the most fascinating things in the world right now.

Chisato settles down in her seat, and between the gaps in Maya’s voice, listens to the meat crackle a little more.

* * *

 

Chisato tries to count how many stations she’s been to, today.

In reality, it’s not all that much more than she’d normally expect; maybe a couple of places she wouldn’t otherwise go alone, and she can’t remember the last time she didn’t stop at Ueno solely to change onto a shinkansen, but a couple of extra train journeys don’t add up to much in the long run.

Hina’s on the platform with her this time too, because they both go west of Nakano - at least, she’s fairly sure Hina does; otherwise why else would she be here? “Long day?” she asks, sharp little teeth in a sharp little smile, and there’s no possible good way to answer that, so Chisato gives her a quiet murmur of affirmation, looking out at the city, view half-blocked by the buildings across from the platform.

“Didn’t do much with mine,” Hina adds. “Guess I was more, uuuh… tired out than I thought! Not like me, right? Am I losing my bop?” _Did you have it in the first place?_ flashes through Chisato’s mind, but she holds herself back. Sometimes defence mechanisms protect you less than you think, she’s started to notice.

“Thank you for-- inviting me,” she comes out with, instead. Her voice cracks a little, in the middle, but she’s sure Hina doesn’t notice.

“Huuuuh? It was Aya’s idea, though—oh. Well, I mean, just wanted to check, y’know? Thought you didn’t like yakiniku. Weird to see you not trying to like, overrule it.” Has she ever said that? Maybe, in a moment of anger; or maybe Hina just assumes Chisato doesn’t like the entire hot, noisy mess, all the having to share with others.

“I like it.”

Her clothes still smell of her and Hina’s sweat, no matter how many sprays of deodorant she’s given herself.

They sit there, in near silence, Chisato’s hand resting and touching against Hina’s but never _quite_ managing to get on top of it. Hina doesn’t talk as much as you’d think, sometimes; and there’s not much rhythm in silence, but Chisato hears a certain melody in the way the trains rumble over the tracks, the Chuo line a little less active than usual on Saturday nights.

“Your train,” Hina offers, when the announcement tells them that a train is coming in to Platform 1.

“Not yours?”

“Naaah. This one doesn’t stop at my station.” There’s a twinge of disappointment to Hina’s voice, Chisato thinks, and she also firmly believes she’s never projected in her entire life.

And perhaps she’s right about that, because before the train quite arrives, Hina leans across and nuzzles into _that_ shoulder, like some particularly large and heavy cat, and as if on instinct, she reaches up to pet her, a little. Those eyes light up, hide away under their lids, and then--

Hina’s arms wrap around her, face pressed into and almost entirely hidden against Chisato’s body, and she vibrates a little as Chisato’s hand runs through her hair, holding on with a level of tightness that’s _fine_ , although any tighter and it might hurt. She tries to push Hina’s head up, as if to get her to calm down, but it doesn’t work. It just makes Hina hold onto even more.

…being hugged, earnestly and needily and _tightly_ by Hina isn’t anything like what she expected.

How ridiculous they must look, Chisato thinks, as she rests her cheek atop Hina’s head, some of Hina’s messed-up hair nearly ending up in her mouth. How even more ridiculous it would be if she wanted to stay here, to stop and wait for the next train, or the one after next, or until the very last one.

(It’s already nearly midnight, after all.)

But as the train pulls in, she feels Hina shift, eyes a little more dull and red than usual as she finally raises her head; and then Chisato’s sent to her feet with an unceremonious pat to the back, Hina pointing over at the train as if she somehow needs guidance on how to board it safely.

“Night, Chisato.”

“Have a good night, Hina.”

And when she’s on the train, legs incredibly not wanting to give out beneath her, she looks back through the doorway.

Hina’s there, smile nearly as fake as Chisato’s, giving her one last wave before turning around to her side of the platform.

There’s still a few moments left, and the yellow line is only one, two steps back…

Chisato might not mind stopping at one more station, tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> fake LINE emulators are harder effort to rig than you'd expect.
> 
> thank you very much for reading!
> 
> this time's theme music is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk3gHdYccAk AINOU by Nakamura Kaho. the full album is on spotify if you wanna check it out!


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